Consideration and Adoption of outstanding Reports and Minutes

Meeting report

Mr C de Beer (ANC; Northern Cape) explained that he will be co-chairing the meeting with Mr T Chaane (ANC; North West) and that he will lead the first half of the meeting.

Committee Report on responses by the Minister of Finance
Mr de beer tabled the report for consideration. He noted that the report was a consolidated reply from the Minister concerning the Committee’s resolutions on the Medium Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS), fiscal framework and related matters. He pointed out that the report replaced the Ministers initial report that was submitted to Parliament and was an update on the Budget Review Book.

Mr Chaane suggested that the Committee adopt the report.

Mr B Mashile (ANC; Mpumalanga) noted that he had only read the report briefly, but had noticed that there were certain recommendations made by the Committee that the Minister had rejected. He advised the Committee to review the comments in depth but also moved for the adoption of the report.

Mr de Beer replied that there would be another opportunity to review the report in October when the MTBPS was released. In his response, the Minister had indicated that it was not possible for the MTBS to be tabled earlier as various financial reports and information would still be outstanding.

Mr de Beer noted that the report had been adopted by the Committee.

Select Committee on Finance
Outstanding Minutes
The Chairperson tabled several outstanding minutes for consideration. These were dated 8, 11, 24 February 2011; 1, 2, 9 March 2011 and 31 May 2011.

Members corrected several minor errors and thereafter adopted all the minutes.

Mr Mashile recommended that the issue of Members who did not attend meetings without making apologies should be addressed. This was also not reflected in the minutes.

Mr A Lees (DA; KwaZulu-Natal) replied that he used to cover four committees, but then realised that this was too much and committed himself to only one committee. He suggested that a Member should organise a replacement if he could not attend a meeting.

Mr de Beer agreed with the comments made by the two previous Members.

Minutes dated 3 March 2011
Mr de Beer tabled minutes dated 3 March 2011. He pointed out that the minutes stated “the motion of the Chairperson”, but in fact it was the request of the Committee and not just the Chairperson. He asked that this be corrected.

The Committee then adopted the minutes after a small grammar correction.

Mr J Bekker (DA; Western Cape) pointed out that he was not able to attend the meeting on 9 March 2011, but had sent an apology and wondered whether anyone had received it as it was not noted in the minutes.

Mr Zolani Rento, Committee Secretary for Select Committee of Finance, confirmed that he had received it. In addition, he requested Members to send their apologies before a meeting and not after, to ensure that it was noted in the Minutes.

Mr de Beer informed Members that they were also welcome to email their apologies to the Secretary or himself directly to ensure that the Committee received it.

Minutes dated 1 June 2011
Mr de beer tabled the minutes for consideration.

Mr Mashile asked whether the discussion about capacity building being a part of Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) was being followed-up on.

Mr Chaane replied that the CEO wanted to believe that capacity was not a part of the organisation’s mandate but it was indeed part of the submissions.

The minutes were approved by the Committee.

Mr Mashile suggested that all committee minutes be made available to Members sooner.

Mr Rento replied that he would do his best to get the minutes to Members sooner than he had in the past.

Mr de Beer concluded that that was the end of the agenda for the Selective Committee of Finance and that the meeting is adjourned.

It was then agreed that they continue with the meeting and just give Members a chance to respond.

It was noted that Mr Chaane would be chairing this part of the meeting.

Select Committee on Appropriations
Outstanding Minutes
Mr Chaane tabled several outstanding minutes for consideration. These were dated 8, 11, 24 February 2011; 9, 22, 23, 30 March 2011 and 24 May 2011.

Members corrected several minor errors and thereafter adopted all the Minutes.

Minutes dated 6 April 2011
Mr Chaane tabled the report for consideration.

Mr Mashile pointed out that the meeting had been a very important. He therefore wanted the minutes to be correct and to capture all the concerns raised, especially about the movement of funds and changes at National Treasury. He also recalled that Mr Chaane had raised an issue concerning processes, but this was not reflected in the minutes.

After a brief discussion around stating each members name when putting a motion, Mr A Lees, suggested that if a Member wanted his or her name recorded, then they should state so.

Thereafter the minutes were adopted by the Committee.

Minutes dated 13 April 2011
The Chairperson tabled the minutes for consideration. It was noticed that on p.3 (no.2.4-2.5) there was a motion that was passed, but it was not stipulated what the motion was.

The Secretary explained that initially it was not clear that the Committee rejected the motion later, but after the presentation the Committee made it clearer that they wanted Limpopo and KwaZulu-Natal to present again.

Mr Chaane recalled that the Committee had wanted the provinces to present again as the information they had supplied was very unclear and incomplete.

Mr Mashile suggested that this point be recorded in the minutes for the sake of clarity.

The Committee approved the minutes after correcting some grammatical errors.

Minutes dated 25 May 2011
Mr Chaane tabled the minutes for consideration.

Mr Mashile suggested that there be an additional sentence to the third paragraph of p.3. This would give more clarity to the KwaZulu-Natal judgment that the minutes referred to.

Thereafter the minutes were approved by the Committee.

Outstanding Reports
Mr Chaane asked Members to consider the two outstanding reports. He noted that Members had only received the reports that morning and gave them 10 minutes to go through them.

Mr Mashile asked Mr Chaane if Members could go through the Report in-depth as they needed to be absolutely sure about the figures in the Report. In light of this, he suggested that adoption be postponed to a later date.

Mr Chaane agreed to this and proposed that 22 June 2011 be set aside for adoption. In addition, he asked that hardcopies be given to all Members and that any corrections would be emailed in advance to the secretaries.

All Members agreed to the meeting and reading the report.

Mr Chaane then adjourned the meeting.